


Soured Sweets

by Bladespeaker



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Asura - Freeform, Food, Friendship, Gen, Halloween, Sylvari, Whimsy, in which one character finally learns she cannot eat ALL the sweets, prompt: Body Horror, prompted fic, transforming candy, yes whimsy body horror can be a thing just WATCH ME.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27247240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bladespeaker/pseuds/Bladespeaker
Summary: Khimma's obsession with sugary delights gets her in trouble when it turns out that the entire tent of goodies has been cursed...





	Soured Sweets

Khimma had heard it about a thousand times over her life, if not from her parents, then from krewemates, coworkers, and lab assistants: If you don’t stop eating sweets, you’ll turn into one. Since, however, the thought was illogical, Khimma merely thanked the more polite ones for their concern and snarked the others for their lack of logic and usually went on to pop another sweet or iced cookie in her mouth.

An asura of somewhat-short size, the fact that she was still able to consume as much as she did with little ill-effect was a mark of curiosity for scientists and jealousy for those who wished they could keep from ballooning. She attributed her high metabolism and innate sweet nature (ignoring her krewemate, Klixx, who would always give an unconvinced “hmph!”) to her talent, and was known for gleefully devouring sugary substances as high as she was tall to the disbelieving gazes of the uncertain. 

“And not a single cavity, either,” she would declare triumphantly, beaming for all to see. “There’s not a single sweet that could best me!”

She supposed later, upon further review, that Halloween may not have been the best time to continue declaring such things. She had just finished polishing off another pound of iced pumpkin cookies when Llumin had walked by. The Commander was a tall, gentle, elegant sylvari and a mesmer of no small repute. Usually, she was very patient and even-tempered, but today, for some reason, there were fractures to her well-maintained disposition.

“Khimma,” she said, bending to look beneath the lid of a previously-locked barrel, “have you seen the sweets I set aside for the guild party?”

“I might have.” The asura popped a pale finger into her mouth and licked off the last of a dish of custard. “What were they?”

Llumin waved a cream-colored hand, whirling away in a gauzy, billowing costume of nearly-transparent leaves that gave her slender form an ethereal appearance. “Well, I doubt even you could have eaten them all,” she said absently, and frowned as she lifted an empty silver dish. “Lyca had been cooking for weeks to make them.”

Khimma’s stomach gave an unusual growl. “Oh?”

“Yes, she had. She made about three large custards, two dozen cookies, seven various pies, and another three dozen candied apples. It was really quite impressive, but recently...” She huffed and put her hands on her hips before reaching up to smooth back a strand of long, purple willow-leaves. “We suspect the Mad King has, for some reason, tainted them.”

Khimma watched her continue to search throughout the sweets tent and tried desperately to ignore the increasing unease of her guts. “Is that so?” she laughed, but the sound was strained.

Llumin wasn’t a fool. She slowly turned toward Khimma. “Yes,” she said, and her eyes narrowed as her lips thinned. “Yet we suspect that the only way they’d have any real affect is if someone were to -- _somehow_ \-- consume from all of the various sweets and goodies.” She crossed her arms as Khimma’s pale ears slowly turned pink. “And, Magister Khimma, I _do_ so hope that you really haven’t overindulged yourself, because we don’t know _what_ those cursed sweets will do.”

“Cursed?” Khimma felt her stomach turn to ashes; her mouth dried. “You said they were tainted, not -- “

“He’s the _Mad King,_ Khimma, and I know you’re not an idiot! If and/or _when_ he taints something, it’s almost never a harmless prank! Gryphon had only just recently warned me of Nettle’s information -- ”

“Okay, how does Nettle know --”

“Khimma, _please!”_ It wasn’t often that the Commander snapped, but even the most unruly of insubordinates usually would shut up then. Khimma’s jaw clicked shut. “The point shouldn’t be how Nettle found out, or whether or not I was able to relay the message, but rather, perhaps, about how you should exercise a bit more restraint! If I had gotten here in time, I could likely have removed the curse, but now...!” 

She gestured to the various empty dishes, storage spaces, and containers that were littered haphazardly about the tent. Khimma’s eyes widened; she must have been searching more rapidly and frantically than she’d realized. Llumin’s voice brought her back from her thoughts. “Well,” she said again, and ran a long-fingered hand down her face, “I suppose we’ll just find out what it does.”

Desperation and a concerning gurgle shot rising panic through the asura’s system. “Find out?” she echoed. “Can’t we just... remove the curse now?”

“Khimma,” Llumin sighed, speaking as if to an unruly child, “the hexbreaker had been made with edible, non-sentient objects in mind. Lord Radwing and I worked for days on it, and we’re not certain as to what it would do to living flesh.”

For some reason, Khimma’s pinkie had started to go numb. “Can’t you re-purpose it?”

The Commander sighed and closed her eyes. “Maybe,” she said softly. “For now, I’d try to avoid any sweets. Drink some water, sit down, and we’ll see if we can come up with something.”

She’d long since drained her glass of water; that it was a norn glass meant that the thing was about a fifth the size of her body, and it was only so long after drinking so much that one could stand still. After dashing around and finally solving the issue _that_ had raised, Khimma decided to return to her spot and wait.

If only that strange itching in her pinkie would stop. The numbness had been concerning, yes, but the undeniable discomfort of the new sensation was by far worse. The guardian grimaced and carefully undid the straps to her gauntlet and itched at the offending appendage. When she took her fingers from the already-returning sensation, she paused. There was a strange, sugary sheen to them. Her eyes widened as the numb tingling lurched up her arm and a buzzing feeling began to hum in her foot.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. She quickly yanked off her boot and hobbled to the center of the Lion’s Plaza. The Mad Monarch had recently entered and departed after another murderous round of Mad King Says, and she had to push through a throng of gleeful costumed Tyrians to get to an area where the light was strong enough to get a decent look. “Oh _no.”_

Magister Klixx was doing an admirable job of keeping his “I Told You So, Bookah,” face in check. It was, however, still visible. “You absolute sugarhead,” he said dryly. “You’re actually turning into -- ”

“Don’t say it!” Khimma wailed. “I know I’m a snack, but this is too close to reality!” A sugary tear dribbled down her pert nose and dripped onto her tunic; her heavy, melting armor had been quickly removed as the situation grew more dire. “I don’t want to be an _actual_ snack!”

Klixx whipped his microspectacles from his golden eyes and frowned. “Who taught you that ridiculous phrase?” he huffed. “Was it Myrie? She’s the one who taught Nettle to ‘strut her stuff’ I think, and honestly, if she makes up any more strange phrases --”

“Klixx!”

“Right, yes. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Magister Tassi says this was likely something the Mad King intended Nettle to eat. People like you probably wouldn’t have noticed, but he had enchanted the sweets with an irresistible curse; those who first started to eat one wouldn’t be able to stop. You, however, have something like that lack of restraint already, so the curse was _doubly_ effective on you.”

“But what does it _do?”_ she howled, and flopped onto the cot where he had set some instruments. He yelped and glowered at his friend as he quickly caught the teetering devices. 

“Well,” he said dryly, “I’d think that would be obvious. It turns the offending party into a glazed candy-corn elemental. I suspect,” he continued, raising a chip of candy fingernail and squinting at it in the light, “that at the very least, regular consumers would have been covered in a bit of glaze, but you,” he said, and motioned it to her with undisguised bewilderment, “somehow ate the _entire spread.”_

_“_ I’ll never do it again,” she sobbed, and broke off with a gasp. “Oh! Oh, no, not my _hair!”_

Her friend shook his head. “As you likely know,” he said wearily, and crossed his arms, “I and the rest of the Knights are already working on a cure. As the moon rises, it’s growing stronger.”

“I _figured_ that much, genius!”

“No need to shout,” he winced, rubbing a sticky spot on a long ear. He frowned. “I think stress makes it worse, too.”

Khimma immediately attempted to stop crying. It worked for less than a second. “Klixx,” her lip trembled, “there’s another problem -- I’m delicious.”

His eyes bulged. “Don’t _eat_ yourself, you bookah!” he snapped. “Just hold on,” he sighed. “I don’t want my best friend to eat herself.”

She sniffled and gave an unsteady smile. “I’ll do my best, Klixx.”

He mirrored her expression. “Well, then, just ... sit tight. We’ll all see if we can fix you soon.”

A few hours later, under the full Mad Moon, Khimma was having an increasingly-difficult time keeping calm. Her hair had turned into sour blue taffy -- she wouldn’t tell how she knew that -- and her arm was a numb block of sweet candy corn. She raised her head dejectedly as another passer-by announced his awe at her current state. She may have been a bit too snappish and nearly chipped a peppermint tooth when she declared that it wasn’t half as fun as it looked. Perhaps that was the worst part, she thought, and sighed. She was losing feeling in every sugary, pepperminty, sour part of her, slowly feeling sweet glaze solidifying and caramelizing every growing inch, and nobody believed her when she said how unpleasant and horrifying it truly was.

“Who wouldn’t want to be candy?” a trick-or-treater said reverently. “It’s the ultimate dream! And you could eat yourself if you got hungry!”

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned, and licked her lips at the sight of her nibbled fingernails. Oh dear. Her lips were strawberry-flavored. She whimpered and threw her hands over her eyes. She lowered one and glared. “Get away from me with that pickaxe,” she snarled, and unsheathed --

She blinked. Her hammer was peppermint. She and the sweet-obsessed children stared at each other. She growled and raised it anyway. “Stay back!”

Even they could recognize a trained warrior in her stance, and they dashed away with various yelps and wistful gazes. She sighed and slumped back into her chair. A step at the tent’s opening made her ears perk. Hope fluttered cotton-candy strands in her chest. “You’re back!”

“It took us a while, and we had to get Nettle back from her dinner with the Bloody Prince,” Llumin said with a smile, “but we may have just found something that could break it.”

The Knights’ resident haemomage rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t have been able to do it without me,” the green-haired sylvari sniffed. She crossed her arms over the front of her red corset. “And I likely wouldn’t have been persuaded were it not for Gryphon’s delightful seal calling me back.”

Her sister, the fiery warrior Sylfia, had come along for the show. She walked toward the necromancer, paused, and craned her neck to look at her back. “Oi could’ve sworn I put a bow in there,” she said, and raised a brow at her. Nettle frowned.

“Well, maybe you forgot.”

The warrior shook her head, orange glow fading through her red skin. “No, Oi _know_ I put a bow in the top of that corset when I helped you put it on today.”

Khimma watched as the normally-unflappable necromancer’s pale skin started blushing a very visible neon green. “Well, maybe I tied a different knot later!”

A wide, knowing smile had carved its crooked way onto the warrior’s face. “That you might’ve,” she cackled, “but even _you_ wouldn’t have been able to tie a _hangman’s noose.”_

Nettle's furious sputtering was interrupted by Klixx clearing his throat. He clapped his hands and turned back to the assembled mages and Knights of Gryphon. “Ladies, gentlemen, and murderous salad,” he began.

“I _am_ standing right here,” Nettle snapped. The elementalist ignored her. 

“As we all know, our dear friend has ingested some cursed sweets -- a whole table that, were any of us to ingest it, surely would have glazed our skin with a delicious, but hopefully harmless, sheen of candy corn. We do not know for whom the curse was laid, but suffice it to say we’d rather save her from being sugared and turned into an unfeeling candy elemental. Thus,” he declared, and turned to Khimma, raising a small golden token, “we’ve but to have you do one thing to break the spell.”

Khimma’s eyes watered. She could only see from one of them now -- the other had since turned into a pink jawbreaker. “Anything,” she sniffled.

Her friend smiled gently and pressed a small chocolate coin with a simple smiling face into her hands. She felt her stomach turn.

“You’ll need to eat just one more sweet.”

Khimma had finally learned her lesson. She had declared she would attempt (emphasis given on the _attempting_ bit) to avoid overindulging in any sweets -- a task that would be quite easy, she said, considering she still could taste five flavors of sugar on her tongue when she tried drinking plain water. She thanked her friends as she returned from the changing-tent, fully armored with regular weapons, and smiled. 

The scent of candy corn was still in the air, but for the first time in ages, she thought, she would pass on the treats.


End file.
